Frisbee tournament!

This weekend I went to Milan for a tournament. I was driven there in a large van, controlled by Davide, the coach of not only the youth team I practiced with on Thursday but many others as well. He is the epitome of a crazy Italian driver - speeding and rapidly breaking, yelling at the other drivers as they waved their hands and gave him dirty looks. I definitely wanted to go to the tournament, but at the end of Thursday's practice he let me know that it wasn't a choice. "You have to," he said to me, for the Milan tournament, the Venice tournament, and even tomorrow's practice, when I shrugged and said I wasn't sure.

I played with a team of boys from outside of Bologna, I'm not sure where, as well as three girls from the Bologna team. We were the Jokers, a name that fit the boys well, which I realized during the evening's festivities. It was pretty exhausting, as there were plenty of boys but only 4 girls, and we were usually playing 3 at once.

One thing that was strange, though, was that these boys were all around my age, 18 and 19, yet they were all in, or had just graduated from, high school. (In Italy you have five years of high school, and most people enter university at 20.) They were all very friendly, though, and my of them spoke English pretty well, which came in use when they were all discussing strategy, and with all the terminology I was in desperate need of a translator. After one time out their captain asked me if I understood, I said no and he said "f--- f--- f---, not down there" (pointing to the endzone behind us), "but down there" (pointing to the other). The girls I was playing with were a little less welcoming, as they seemed mostly around 17 and younger, and seemed to be very absorbed in their own conversations which I could only understand a tiny piece of.

The first day, the boys did not pay much attention to me until the festivities began directly after dinner, which was outside the gym we were sleeping in - the real party was at an actual bar/club/restaurant that we had bracelets to get into. The TD (I think) started organizing what he called a "beer race," which initially sounded to me like it would be flip cup. However, I was very wrong. At the mention of beer, one of the girls, 17, ran over to see if she could join, eager to be served alcohol. Davide once again asked if I was going to participate, once again using the phrase "you have to." I politely declined , saying I didn't much like beer, but walked over to see what was going on. As I arrived at the crowd, the boys I was playing with started telling me that one of them was playing yet needed a partner (the game required a coed team of two) they started chanting my name and I thought, why not.

This was the game: first, drink two small cups of beer, about the size of 1.5 or 2 dixie cups each. Then, spin around in a circle ten times. Finally, do an easy 20 piece jigsaw puzzle. As soon as I heard the last step, I knew there wasn't going to be a problem. While my drinking was average at best, and I'm sure my spinning was slow, we easily finished the puzzle with time to spare, my partner not believing how little time it took my to put it together. He said something like, "with drinking I'm good, puzzle not so much." We advanced to the final round, against the winners of the other round, and, once again, drinking average, spinning was a little faster, but probably still average, and puzzle took no time at all. The whole time they were chanting our names, singing some song I didn't understand, and then went crazy when we won. Yelling and picking us up and circling us. Even chanting "USA."

After that, I was completely accepted into their group. I couldn't believe it: all because of a (usually useless) ability to complete jigsaw puzzles. When we got to the party they were asking me if I had a boyfriend, and when I said yes they said "he's all the way in Chicago" and "every American comes to Italy and has an Italian lover." When we said goodbye the following day - only one car-ful was left, those boys kissed my on both cheeks, as Italians are prone to do, and told me that I had to join them at more tournaments, including one in London (I don't think I can go, I think it's the weekend I move-in at Rome).

As for the actual frisbee-playing, our team finished ninth out of ten. The Jokers were a new team though, playing together for only 4 or 5 months. I was one of the most experienced players on it, and always was handling for them. Many of them were actually quite good, and I think their main problem, besides lack of experience, was poor decision making, like desperate dump passes at stall nine and useless hucks to a guy completely covered. I was pretty pleased with how I played, with a few hucks, a few breaks, and not too many turnovers.

Unfortunately the Jokers are not going to Venice - if I go it will be with another of Davide's youth teams, but hopefully I'll have another fun tournament with them in the future.